


Red Sky

by Trident Silver (fluxfiction)



Series: The Vivid Room [1]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Dad Vergil, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Gen, Mystery, No Smut, Plot, Rated for blood, Thriller, Vergil is Awkward, Worldbuilding, there is a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2020-03-06 16:15:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18854572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluxfiction/pseuds/Trident%20Silver
Summary: Following a return from Hell, it's been two weeks since anyone ordered a pizza to Devil May Cry. Or, rather, it's been two weeks since anyone last saw Dante.Society is still trying to clean up after the Qliphoth. Homes lost to the ruins are slowly rediscovered by their owners. A demon attack now would be the last thing anyone needs, except, the area hasn't had a demon attack for months.How far the mystery of Dante's absence goes is unknown. But it's more than anyone expects. Maybe, if one looks far enough, it has something to do with Sparda...





	1. Moment (Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> _Red Sky_ is the mystery and backstory for [The Vivid Room](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1363303) series. It builds upon DMC canon from DMC5, including the anime, but **you are not missing anything by not knowing it**. You're welcome to let me know where I might have made an error — I don't mind corrections.
> 
> Here is the notice that you might encounter some graphic material. And there are descriptions of illegal activities. I'll attempt to give warnings where I can but I trust you won't go out and disappear somebody.
> 
> There's no obligation to comment (though obviously it will make me very very happy). I just hope you can enjoy it.
> 
> No author's notes from here on out. Thanks to all my helpers. Have fun!
> 
> \- TS

 

_Red sky at night, sailors' delight._

_Red sky at morning, sailors' warning._

 

* * *

 

> _October 5     2:58 PM_
> 
> _..._

The pool table at Devil May Cry is protected. A sheet of wood sitting on top has made it a makeshift workbench.

Lined up on its surface are: a box of bullets, a disassembled firearm, plastic components, and two key rings of twenty keys like two fanged donuts in twelve flavours of metal.

Near it, a low table withstands the bearing of half a dozen archival boxes. A wastebasket is half-full instead of half-empty. A red suitcase is tucked beside the red sofa. _K.A., M.A.A.,_ and _Lady._

There is a ceiling fan swirling as it cuts through the air without objective. The mini-fridge hums around its groceries whilst the coat tree stands up naked. Jazz dominates from the jukebox. It's _Lost_ , Wayne Shorter. Track one. That Blue Note sound. Music like streams of thoughts dropping from a maw. Stereo quality.

Thoughts drop twice in the time the rotary phone rings. A woman in white walks past the image of a loving mother.

The woman in white unhooks the receiver. "Devil May Cry. You don't happen to have a password?"

Questions.

"No, Dante's not around at the moment. Yes."

Rock Queen Elena Huston observes from her framed record. Under Elena Huston, the desk holds the phone and little else. It has since become filled as if to represent the change in occupants at Devil May Cry.

First a book. To begin at the beginning, first a history book. Evolution led it into fiction, the kind which sells a handful of copies for collectors of certain collections; occasionally there is a mutation into true crime. A white label on the spines, Mr. Dewey. Does history understand your choices or judge you against your enemies? The texts share one feature: the bookmark takes the form of a library ID.

Then the addition of a newspaper, one of those _Times_. Occult Times, Folklore Times, Interesting Times, Devil Times. Today's headline runs a time. _In The Moment: The Red Grave Disaster._ Photos of a man in a red coat. Walls and footpaths covered in blood splatter. Their readers pay a premium for full coverage. Their printers go through red ink like wildfire.

Last a pizza promotion from two weeks ago, handwritten characters sprawled across the back. _Going out —D._

The woman in white leans against the desk. "We have no idea when he'll be back." Her fingers twist around the wire. "No - I don't know. You'll have to ask him if he wants to do your interview."

On the second floor there's the sound of footsteps, loud like a tree falling in an empty forest. It's been dry between seasons. The winds of fortune have stopped breathing.

"Thanks for calling. Maybe get back to us with a job next time."

It's only been clean-up work since the Qliphoth, or advisory. How to rebuild against demon damage. Nothing new. There hasn't been enough work for two, let alone three.

"Bye."

Gravity welcomes the handset down into its cradle.


	2. Story of Mermaid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Warnings: Body horror, drowning, gore, object insertion into a humanoid body, object extraction from a humanoid body ]  
> 

> _September 19     11:40 AM_
> 
> _..._

"Are you stupid?"

"Who, me?"

"Yes." Vergil gestures with the Yamato, first at Dante and then at the gate. There's a cut in his sleeve. A stream of blood trickles down her blade and her folded steel. "This will close as soon as the Yamato passes through. You cannot _follow_ 'behind' me. By the laws which govern, it is impossible. Do you understand?"

Dante simply saunters. "Yeah, yeah." He takes a look closer. Sharp as the Yamato's blade is, this gate looks more like a wound ripped through fabric with a blunted box cutter. The jagged edges where reality splits bleed a distortion into the air, mist rippling like a heat wave, nebular currents the colour of ultraviolet and infrared. Dante touches it and it slices through his fingers without resistance. He feels no thickness in the edge. He brings his fingers to his face, then into his mouth. He dips his head so his ear is beside the seam. There aren't any differences. No new sounds, no new tastes, no new smells; like it exists only in two dimensions.

Dante straightens and looks forwards.

For one last time, he searches.

He listens, spreading out his senses. They unravel across the plateau like the gentle rise-and-fall weave of linen unrolled unto a table. They brush against dips and soft earth like cavities and gums, finding wooden fossils and preserved exoskeletons and not a single hint of life left in the area. Why oh why does Vergil deem this location best for passing through? His usual surgical precision seems lacking—this toothy landscape has nothing to offer. The demons are dead. The roots are dead. Who knows how long the monochromatic plains have been abandoned wastelands around here?

Dante senses nothing new, and it sours him.

He slips his devil sword over his shoulder and looks back to the rip between the worlds. "There wouldn't happen to be any platforming through here, is there?"

"Perhaps there is. Should you take any longer, I will push you off one and into the abyss myself." The stream of blood down Vergil's arm still hasn't scabbed over yet. The gate's outline wavers. It occurs to Dante that Vergil might be expending energy keeping the gate open.

"Well, Verge?" Dante chuckles. "You sure don't let anyone say you can't keep around a vendetta."

* * *

> _October 5     3:15 PM_
> 
> _..._

_He was cleaved by a boy against a Saviour._ It's the visions of stone robes, a blue coat, a face which looks like his own yet fifteen years younger. The boy is so similar to him it's uncanny. His rage and strength and indomitable will. He knows who the boy is. He should know who the boy is. The more he tries to remember, the more his head bursts into flames.

There's a soreness in his jaw that's more than simple stiffness. He struggles. His limbs and mind are sluggish. His chest burns. His eyes can't open. Enough comes together that he realises there's something cold and solid run through his gums. _He was rent upon a broken sword to gain power._ Even now he can think and remember the feel of a moulded grip within his hands. His hands never stay the same size in what memories he can gather up, child and youth and adulthood. They've gained scars and calluses. They have bled as the sword has been bled on. The boy has cleaved him with the blade against a Saviour.

He knows for sure he's known this sword more than he knows the boy.

And with this comes something else, like the calling of a voice from afar. _He was stabbed in the front by a blade made of lightning._ He lifts an arm and encounters a solid spike. A tugging at his wrist draws attention to a chain. He gasps and fluid enters his mouth. It's too acidic to be water. He takes another gasp, breathing in the fluid again, and the burning in his chest recedes into just a tightness—like someone or something is pulling at his skin.

 _He was killed with his sword by a blonde challenging his bloodline._ Blood. What is so special about blood? The fluid reminds him of blood. Hell, it sure tastes like it. He tries to remember and can't remember anything.

Suddenly a shock goes through him, he breathes, and into his chest enters fresh air. Immediately after that he coughs, hacking up a thick and solid _something_ too big for his throat, like those cartoons swallowing objects whole. With every wheeze it seems to become stuck. It's so large there must be an outline of its progress as it moves up his neck. He can't move, but if only he can see—

His vision clears.

There is a person next to him, a woman. She's slightly above the level of his eyes, her dark hair falling over her dark black shirt. Her skin is pale under the yellow light, her lips full and red, and her long eyelashes flicker as she notices him looking. His gaze trails away and his eyes try to bring the rest of the room into focus.

The gentle pressure of three fingers tilts his head to look at her again. "Good afternoon, Dante."

Dante. And the devil. _He was hewn by a broken sword and forged a blade bearing their name._

 _What the heck?_ he tries to say. He misses his chance as two hands suddenly tip his head back and force his jaw open. They're not the woman's hands. Dante fights to turn around and see who—or what—has him in such a deathly strong grip when the woman leans over him. She smells like trees and wild berries and so very human. A soft hand rests upon his collar.

"Relax, if you would please."

And then she's holding metal tongs the size of her arm and reaching in. The tongs enter his throat, and it says a lot about the size of whatever is stuck in there that he can barely feel it. He has nothing to look at but her face, and watches as her brow drops and her nose crumples in consternation. He feels the thing in his throat jolt as she seizes it, the same moment her eyes alight and she's pulling it free.

It flies out of his throat and mouth. Dante stares at what looks like the unholy union between a cleaning rag and a blob of fatty meat dripping red fluid down her forearms and down his chin.

"Your old lungs, which have gone rotten," she explains, then turns to whoever Dante cannot see. "Take this to the processing room, Lilith?"

The hands release him, take the tongs, and vanish. By the time Dante has recovered from the shock, all traces of his old lungs have disappeared, his new lungs heave and filter through stale air-conditioned air as if they'd existed from birth, and the woman is a distance away, beside a cluttered table, her arms wiped clean. He tries to move but is finally together enough to realise he's restrained. Around him is a tub like an oversized test tube. The same type of red liquid which drenched his old lungs goes up to his chest in a line, faintly translucent, reflecting the light above the tank as flares of bright white.

He tugs against the bindings again. It's no use. Whatever is keeping him here is too strong for a human. A pearl called memory gleams at him from within its shell. This body made of human parts is not sustained by purely human veins. _He rises from a cross where Rebellion pins them onto stone._

Dante grins and learns two things.

First: smirking with a bar through his gums flares a sonovabitch backhand across his skull, a bar fight at shit o'clock adding to the headache he'll get the next morning.

Second: a bumper trigger is missing. Cold hits him, and suddenly the liquid drains him of his warmth. There's something wrong with the balance of devil and human. He can't activate into a Devil Trigger—either of them.

On the sound of a click, and then a scratching sound, Dante's gaze darts across the room. Posters are hung on the walls and stains are sprawled onto the floors. Low waiting room chairs reside beside a bookshelf. Linoleum fuses into concrete divided by a tiled wash station connected by an exchange of exposed plumbing. Shadows shaped like machinery thrum the low synthetic vibes of the generator taking up more than two-thirds of the side wall. And a frivolous kitchenette exists as a sanctuary for the tired, the first suspect for food poisoning, or both. This place looks like the wreck of a haunted hospital. The scratching sound belongs to a gramophone with a petunia horn.

The woman is looking through a bundle of papers. The table was spotless once, atop its spindly metal legs. Now it is filled with charts, diagrams, calculators, and empty beakers scattered askew. Spontaneous, the choice in music remarks; it sings to inspire action and strums to the notes of revolution. Elena Huston's husky voice dips with each line, reaching for human conscience in the wastewater of life. The guitar blazes a future of passion as cymbals skate across a rally line. Join us, citizen. I'll show you what you're blind to. Fight for the future you desire. _You're living in delusion!_

"—I find it's nice to work to music." The woman's words bring Dante back to order. She doesn't notice. She writes on her papers with her left hand. "This is one of my personal favourites."

"[Mermaid Rock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHdekLhUz28)?"

The woman turns around at his comment and Dante suddenly sees her anew. Russet hair, ivory skin, eyes bearing the luster of diamonds set under a sharp brow. Violet teardrops on her earlobes. Misplaced youth in the planes of her face and a set to her shoulders suggesting at power. Vergil would love that. She wears strength like a mantle. Nero would follow that. She is not slim, nor skinny, nor round, nor curvy. She is decadent, generous, rich, and made for loving.

She meets Dante's gaze with the most genuine smile he has seen since waking up. "Oh, you know Elena? That's wonderful. Truly. Lilith doesn't care for music." The bundle falls shut in a flap of sound. It's tossed and lands on top of some flanges and pens. It's careless.

The devil watches and notes all her weaknesses. It senses none of its kin. She is only human.

She examines him. "You're looking a lot better now. It does appear that oxygen is the key to unlocking your full regenerative powers."

Dante reconsiders the devil's assessment. "That's not something I'd expect a human to know."

"One wouldn't, would they?" She continues to smile.

Dante opens his mouth to taunt her back. The sound of a buzzer hollers, painful to the ears, worse than a screaming child. Nothing's good about the acoustics of this room. Nothing's good about the sound of chains clinking and clanking around him. From above, from the left, from below, from the right. Valves gleam bronze as he glances up. He starts sinking, winches pulling him downwards and deeper into the water. He struggles, trying to keep his head and mouth above the surface. He takes one last breath.

And then he's under.

If it's an underwater escape sequence, Dante knows how to handle underwater escape sequences. Deafening gurgling crackles between his ears. He shifts a little, as much as he can, and makes a few noises so he can listen to whatever comes back. He shifts and deduces thick cuffs on his arms and ankles, skewers through his gut, chain spooled around his legs, a metal rung.

He opens his eyes and he sees exactly that.

He also sees the brown, discoloured growths like patches pebbled across the surface of his skin. Over major joints, the scaly protrusions extend from his very bones. They cover his arms and his legs, beginning from his bare thighs. The plan deserts him in that instant, so swept up by surveying the full extent of the transformation. He shifts enough into the light to see the discolouration comes from inky blackness. Where they are concentrated, they make tiny mounds on his scales. Where they aren't, they look like freckled spots in the shape of seven-pointed stars.

He feels more than hears the seal hissing airtight. It takes a moment, but then his lungs are trying to blow him up from the inside out. A large puff of bubbles float up and out through his nose as he loses precious oxygen. The walls of the tank begin to vibrate. The muscles in his face loosen enough for the liquid in the tank to enter him.

The devil is first to understand. The woman cuts off their air, which weakens the human blood, which then weakens their power.

Where he still has flesh, it tries to expand. The liquid pulls at him, at his skin. The devil thrashes but the restraints hold firm against their weakened powers. The devil feasts on the human source it has left. Areas on their hips rise before hardening into a rich and glossy exoskeleton. The liquid flowing into them feels odd, unfamiliar. They gulp, swallow, and ... it feels ... alright.

He sees white light, a moon in the mouth of seven deadly towers, and a mirror image in blue. _He was ended by his sword and its brother beneath a too-bright moon._

Outside the tank, the woman touches its side. "You've saved the world, and you'll save it again."

The black dots begin to grow.

* * *

> _September 19     11:34 AM_
> 
> _..._

The air smells like blood. It's rot, cinnamon, undertones of cocoa spice. The ground is black glass with a powder coating of silvery dust. Dante's red coat has long darkened into crimson, its complexion tinted grey. Above and all around them the cloudless sky bleeds brightly with the perpetual fires of twilight. Within the still silence exists a dry aftertaste of bitter-sour.

Vergil stops. "Here," he says blandly.

"Here?" Dante looks around. What looks like stone or bone arcs upwards out of the landscape some thirty feet in the distance - a bumpy archway, or the remains of a gargantuan rib cage. Along their length are imprints shaped like foliage from an apple tree. To the other side is a knot in the shape of an immature Empusa warren. The corpses of worker ants are posed around it, frozen, preserved like an exhibit. Black dots gleam from where they are dotted all across those once-leathery skins.

 _Devil Sword Dante_ in his hand, Dante swipes across a corpse and watches it disintegrate into the same silver dust beneath his soles.

"What'd'ya reckon this is?" Dante asks, nudging it with his boot. "Looks different around here, more dead."

"... We should return."

Slowly, Dante turns. "What did you say?"

Vergil's gaze, levelled at the horizon, does not waver. "The Qliphoth's source has become shredded enough. The mass will collapse upon itself and those scavengers of Hell hiding from our presence are more than enough to end the rest."

"And if there aren't scavengers?"

"There are. The scavengers are to Hell as the Moon is to the Earth. The Underworld is filled with hundreds and thousands and millions of them."

Dante begins to raise his sword. Vergil tenses, imperceptibly, and Dante aborts the motion. "What's to say there isn't more out there to kill?"

" _Dante,_ " says Vergil, sharp and on the edge of fragile patience.

—And they're brothers again, just like that. Vergil is seven and scolding Dante for pushing him into the river. _That's got nothing to do with cooling off!_ Dante likely tried to play with Vergil's things again. Mother punishes both of them whenever she finds out. Now they're in their forties and Vergil is slotting right back into his life, like Vergil wants to try.

Vergil takes Dante's silence as an affirmative, draws the Yamato, and slashes twice. The universe gives a shudder, twists in consideration, and splits itself open upon command.

Just like that.

Alongside the tingling entering Dante's skin comes a sense of dread. He stares at the space unblinking. "Dad _was_ a god."

Vergil turns. "What?"

Vergil gets a lazy smile for his attention and a casual shrug for his consideration. "Nuthin'. This is it, is it? We go upstairs, bake some cakes, throw a party - our thanks for cutting down the Qliphoth?"

A beat passes.

"Don't be obnoxious," Vergil says coolly, yet not coolly enough. He's always like this, thinking too much into things Dante would rather not think about. Vergil flicks the Yamato in an arc. "Let's go. There is unfinished business to attend to."

"You go right ahead, Verge. I'll be, uh," Dante gestures, "I'll be behind you."


	3. Today and Yesterday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Recap:**  
>  "Don't be obnoxious," Vergil says coolly, yet not coolly enough. He's always like this, thinking too much into things Dante would rather not think about. Vergil flicks the Yamato in an arc. "Let's go. There is unfinished business to attend to."
> 
> "You go right ahead, Verge. I'll be, uh," Dante gestures, "I'll be behind you."

> _September 23     10:52 AM_
> 
> ...

Lady expects the worst whenever walking into Devil May Cry, and this is one of those days. Shitty cleanup work, police reports, talking to humans who think they have a demon for a neighbour or the neighbour's dog; the lot. But today she enters it and finds Dante looking at a bottle of vodka. His grip on the neck is nostalgic. So is the tumbler filled with clear spirit on the surface of the table. It looks like today's a free ticket down memory lane.

She almost prefers the cleanup stuff.

"Drinking already, Dante?" she asks, walking over to the coffee table. Kalina Ann is placed on top, her bayonet shiny and sharpened new. "What's it this time? Vergil cut up some humans for calling him white Goku?"

Dante's lack of response says one thing and one thing only as Lady drops the rest of her gear; her day is about to get a lot worse starting now.

The loud splitting of velcro thunders into the eaves as she swaps the explosive grenades on her waist for her less-than-lethal tactical pack. "Come on, red devil," she mutters, dreading it already. God forbid she have to be the one to make Dante sober. "Don't become what you were a dozen years ago now, alright?"

She's digging free a baton from an archival box when the prickling starts. Her instincts, honed through the years, pick up the presence of a powerful demon's attention. It hides under the skin of a human, this beast of blood; power rearing formless, more fiend than man. Like this he's a pit of the person who'd promised to help her end the demons on the earth. Even Mary knew that vice and circumstance strips all men of their word, just like stamps stolen and reused after being removed with lukewarm water.

Dante's gaze burns dark and long. "What was a dozen years ago, now?" he asks.

"You, meeting Trish."

Dante breathes, the air audible as it fills up his lungs. "Trish, huh ..."

"Motorbike? Fire damage?"

"Not the first time ..."

All ready to go, Lady walks over from her corner of the office and to his desk. She sits on its edge. Then, watching Dante carefully, she reaches to tip over the photo on his desk.

He doesn't tense.

If his demonic gaze hasn't confirmed he's wasted, his non-reaction does that for him.

"Eleven in the morning," she says. " _Really?_ "

Dante shrugs. "You tell me. What do you want?"

"What makes you think I want something from you?"

"You haven't gone to find Vergil yet, if it's a job." He meets her eyes for another second, and within the simmering potential for destruction, she sees the firm intelligence and absolute confidence of a man that knows he is correct in all matters—whether they concern him or not.

"You," says Lady, moving away to make distance between them before he exhales and covers her in microscopic particles of disgusting demon stuff, "are a devil of a nightmare."

Dante puts the bottle in one of the desk drawers. "Government want us to kick their task force around, don't they?" She twitches and he preempts her response. "Vergil can't do it because he isn't 'acclimatised to human interaction'. They're giving you good money from their budget, so it'll be good for both of us." Dante cocks his head. "No. You couldn't go to Vergil anyway, even if you wanted. You've already given him something else to do. Is that everything?"

Lady swings her fist through the air so sharply her shoulder vibrates. _The nerve of this man._

"Don't change the subject," she snaps. "What's wrong with you? It's been three days since the two of you got back. What happened?"

"Nothing happened."

"Bullshit. What happened?"

He's silent for the longest time. That is, until she walks over to the jukebox. It's a complete accident; she just knows that staying near him when she's so angry only adds to her frustration.

Absently, she touches the record framed on the wall and hears the thump of Dante's soles as they hit the floor.

"Don't," is what he says.

What the word feels like is a torrent of a hailstorm. Time slows and she feels her hackles rising by the microsecond. "A hundred off your debt if you tell me what's going on."

His eyes narrow in what is clearly a 'no'. "Step away from that."

Lady does. Dante's feet go up on the desk again and the pressure in the air drops, returning back to normal. She takes a look at the record, now that she knows it's so important somehow. _Mermaid Rock_ , by Elena Huston. A closer inspection reveals it's autographed. Interesting. "I'll strike two hundred."

She feels Dante's stare on her back as she turns to the door. About a minute passes before she sighs. "Free pizza for —"

"Morrison shouldn't have gotten you involved with the Qliphoth."

"Excuse me?" Her hands clench into fists.

"You're human."

Let it be said that Dante knows how to wield his words as well as he can wield any weapons which sing to his power and his pedigree. Yet anyone who suggests she can forgive and forget because it's a taunt fails to understand what makes Dante insufferable. In all of two words, he's made it personal.

Her glare barely makes it across half the room. His presence brushes it off in the same breath.

"Selfish dick," she mutters, beginning to regret moving into the Devil May Cry office; she never enjoyed any kind of property destruction, least of all in the places she lived and slept. A 9mm is looking good to medicate him with. "Listen here, _Dante_. I went because, that way, you get a backup. Meanwhile _you_ — and I had to hear this from _Nero_ — were gone for three months to do something that should have taken, what? Two hours?"

"I told you I'd help you kill every last demon. There were demons that should've been killed down there before they could terrorise us."

"And you did that. Really well."

"What?"

Lady allows herself half a second to relish in the surprise in his voice. "We haven't had a job with real demons since the tree fell."

"That's ... not right ..."

His feet drop to the floor.

Suddenly, he glances across the surface of his desk. It's empty, to be expected. The owner's feet kick everything onto the ground. Lady taps her foot as Dante disappears under it. She hears noises from him fussing about with his drawers. Then he's up on his feet, moving. His full height of 6'4" towers over the coat rack comically.

He grabs his jacket and puts it on.

For Lady, she contemplates. His thought processes are a mystery and his motivations, so transparent, just keep throwing her into different parts of a tree-infested forest without a map or a sign. Throughout their years of friendship she still can't understand how his goals line up.

They're not that close. 

It's not her problem.

Dante looks at the glass left on the table, then starts to down it. He raises his eyebrows at her.

She must have flinched.

"Lady," he says, "it's eleven in the morning."

"So?"

The glass is tilted towards her, pointedly, and he holds it out. She takes it with reluctance. Her head snaps back to Dante so fast it gives her whiplash. "This — this is water."

Dante holds his hands up, materialising his sword in a pulse of power and red light. He slings it. "Can't think when I'm buzzed. You remember asking me what I knew about family?"

"Yes ..." Years and years ago, when they first met.

"Give that job to Vergil. He can do it. He's more human than you think he is right now — he wanted us to come back."

He cracks the door open.

"I got some demons to find. See ya."

With a swish of his coat, he's gone.

Lady looks at the glass for a long moment, still trying to wrap her head around the fact that Dante _isn't_ piss-drunk. All until she realises what's staring her in the face. Dante, doing what he always does: making a mess for her to clean up.

Lady storms onto an empty street. "Get back here, dickwad!"

A note will go unnoticed on the desk until Vergil returns and Dante has not.

_Going out —D._

* * *

> _October 5     3:20 PM_
> 
> _..._

The front door to Devil May Cry opens and closes, letting a body slip through the gap. What follows is a very distinctive pattern of steps rapped out by a pair of combat boots.

"Nero," greets Lady with ease.

Nero's head swings around in the manner of looking for someone. He's hunched forwards, clearly trying to hide something. Lady has a feeling it's related to the bundle of blue tucked in his elbow.

"Yo, hey." Nero nods at her respectfully. "Dante not back yet?"

Lady gestures at all the empty space and resumes working on top of the pool table converted into a bench. And what a clue that is towards Dante's noticeable absence.

Fascinated in her handiwork, Nero wanders over.

"What's that you got?" she asks first, indicating the blue wrapping paper.

Nero stiffens. "... Something for, uh, V—Vergil. Kyrie's idea." Nero hastily changes the subject. "Still haven't found a place yet?"

She nods and indulges him, which is enough of a sign he's flushing, ears going hot or not. Fuck embarrassment. "Nope. There's word of a new condo going up where my place used to be. We'll see when there's more than smoke and rumours if they'll gouge us on the new development."

Nero nods sympathetically. He'd hate to lose his home like she did in the disaster.

Then he caves to his curiosity and points at the firearm she's assembling. "This is new. Mind if I have a look?"

"Go ahead."

It's a handgun. One of those new ones with a plastic polymer frame. It's different to Blue Rose in a way that's curious, and very unfamiliar. The grip is wider and its weight distribution is designed to sit more even. He checks the magazine is empty, then peers inside the chamber to confirm the same. Satisfied in its safety, he pulls the slide shut. Then he twists his forearm around and tests the trigger.

Huh.

"Glock 17. Just swapped her out to an aftermarket slide with better sights. As far as guns go, this is fairly modern - thought I needed a bit more variety in the arsenal." Lady watches him. "Since you like your guns old-fashioned, I doubt you'll like this one."

Nero lines the sights up to Dante's dartboard. "Feels a bit fragile."

"Fragile for you maybe. Not all of us are part demons, Shocker."

"Yeah ... eh, heh." Nero hesitates, putting the weapon down. "Listen. I need a favour."

"Hm?"

"It's ... Kyrie."

And so Nero tells her about how his girlfriend has been going to the gym after The Red Grave Disaster, concerned for her ability to protect the children when he's not around, and her membership includes self-defence lessons. While money's not an issue, some of the things he's noticing—more jumpiness, even stiffening when Nero placed his hand onto her arm from inside her blind spot the other day ...

"It doesn't sound normal to me," Nero finishes. He rubs his fingers through his hair, bouncing on his toes as agitation gets the better of him. "And that guy instructing her, he doesn't look like he's got her best interests at heart, yeah? Yeah ..."

"So you want me to see what's happening and kick his ass?"

"No!" Nero flushes. "I was - err, I was hoping you wouldn't mind teaching Kyrie. I can kick his ass myself."

"You know you're raising a group of kids, Nero?"

"I know." He gets it. If he winds up in some kind of trouble, it'll hit his ability to look after them. If she isn't saying, 'you're raising some kids', she's telling him 'you're no longer a knight on Fortuna', as if he'll go ahead and forget any time soon. "Can you do it, Lady? Or do I gotta ask Trish?"

"If it's for a favour ..." Lady smiles. "Let me see that gun of yours for a couple hours and I'll give your girlfriend a few weeks."

"Wait, serious?"

"I ain't doing it for you, hotshot. I'm doing it for the girl who'd think of giving _that,_ " she indicates the awkwardly wrapped bundle in Nero's hands, "to a man who committed large-scale murder of an entire town all because of his selfishness. _She_ needs it. _You'll_ owe me one."

"I'm starting to see how Dante's still in debt."

"Dante? Dante asks for favours like every day's his birthday." Lady tilts her head to the staircase. A sour note enters her expression. "Your old man's upstairs."

Nero thanks her, gives her the revolver he'd customised into Blue Rose, then takes the stairs up to the loft two at a time.

"And nice scarf," Lady calls like an afterthought.

He doesn't get a chance to respond because Vergil is suddenly at the top of the stairwell.

"What is that?" Vergil asks bluntly.

Nero blinks. He's about to change his mind about giving his father a present—and Lady's right, who would give someone like _him_ the thing he'd brought—when he realises that, no. Vergil isn't looking at the gift. Vergil is looking at the scarf.

The fingers of Nero's free hand curl into the soft, black wool. "Kyrie made it for me."

"Kyrie?"

"My ... ah, girlfriend."

Vergil looks at it for a moment longer, something like curiosity in his silvery-ice eyes. Nero shifts under the silent judgement. "She used to be a songstress for the Order."

"Hm."

Without another comment, Vergil returns to sorting through a trunk of things Dante collected at some point or another in his life. There's another trunk filled with stuff that Nero knows has been rescued from the ruins of their old house. He takes out two books with more care than Nero has ever seen him give to anything, gently smooths out the covers, and tucks his elegant hands into some pages to uncurl one or two corners which haven't lain flat.

Well, this is only going to get more awkward. Nero sticks his hand out with the present before he can think twice. "I got this for you ..." _Dad._ As if Vergil can hear the word that Nero couldn't say, he stiffens. Fuck. No turning back. "It's for, _les préparatifs_." No reaction. "You, err, have to take it."

The two books are placed inside a small crate with the Yamato sitting atop it. The very fact that the Yamato is on it is all the label it needs to say, 'Vergil's Stuff'. Then, either entirely oblivious to the mountain of sweat from a nervously shaking Nero or - hopefully - blind to it, he reaches out for the bundle. If it isn't rude, Nero would have thrown it at Vergil himself.

The wrapping crumples noisily under the strength of Vergil's grip.

Fuck.

"Right, leaving now —"

"What is les préparatifs?"

Nero jerks with one foot over the stairwell. He notices how Lady's workbench is pointed at the stairs in prime position to see him making a fool of himself. Nero quickly steps back onto the upper landing.

Vergil has moved to sit on a bar stool with a broken footrest.

"Uhh —" Fuck. Nero hops a few steps so he can sit on a — he looks. A small filing cabinet. Seeing it forces him to bite back a laugh. _Dante_ owns, or once owned, a _filing cabinet._ Unless the jerk got given it somehow. "Les préparatifs are ... a religious thing. The story goes, that, Sparda went to fight and defeat the demon emperor in October."

Vergil shifts only the smallest amount in his shoulders. Somehow the understated quality to his movements suggest more to his interest than if he does anything else.

Nero thinks back to church. "So — _'The first week he was armed; the second week he learned to fight; the third, he understood the nature of his quest; and in the fourth, he set out. On the eve of the end, he departed, and as the sun rose, the demon emperor was done.'_ During les préparatifs, or The Preparations, all those who served Him created and delivered an item for His use in the great battle. Nowadays that just means everyone makes a gift for the next oldest person in the family."

"You made this?" Vergil's grip stops suffocating the gift-wrap.

"Yeah. I did. So what?" Nero rubs his neck. His fingers catch in the scarf and remind him what he's forgetting. "... You're also supposed to open it in front of the person who gave it to you so they can tell you what it's for."

Kyrie's scarf has a simple meaning: _I want you to remember that I'm with you, so don't doubt yourself._

With a reminder of her belief in him, Nero sees that Vergil is every bit as awkward as he is. That only serves to make Nero even more nervous. Vergil unpacks it and... stops.

The dark grey dragon plush peeks back at him.

"It was Kyrie's idea," Nero blurts out.

Kyrie's idea it may have been, but by the rules of les préparatifs, Nero was to create. It's a requirement to pick up some crafting skills in Fortuna, but more importantly, it's a part of personal duty to always give gifts put together with care. At one point Nero was so drawn into the art of sewing that he forgot who his gift was going to. He remembers stitching the cerulean belly, attaching the wings lined in cobalt blue cloth, and his seven frustrated attempts at patterning the stuffed smoke effect coming off the horns. His embarrassment escalates into uncomfortable dryness in his mouth.

Vergil examines the three tiny silver claws on one paw. "What is it for?"

Nero hesitates. "Giving you hugs."

Nero is proud of how the dragon turned out, and so sure that anyone would acknowledge his hard work, that he doesn't expect Vergil to flinch and nearly throw it away. The Nero responsible enough in his faith that he'd make and give something with so much purpose to his father suddenly remembers being ten years old and swearing to the dirt that he had Credo and Kyrie and everyone else who treasured him. He didn't _need_ blood relatives, he spat.

He doesn't need blood relatives and the ensuing silence doesn't hurt him.

Vergil sits down. Nero gets up to leave. Nero's done his duty. He doesn't care whatever Vergil is thinking.

"Mother —" Vergil begins, choking off. "Your grandmother, Nero. Eva also ... Eva also liked music."

Nero stops. "Really? She —" his breath catches.

"She ... it would be more accurate to say that your grandmother was the one who brought music into our family. Devils, you know, can't understand emotions from song. Not love, not even hate, it's all noise to them. Father — Sparda could hold a note, but even the most powerful blood in the Underworld cannot add feelings to music. Father taught us how to fight. Mother taught us how to love."

"That's why I can't sing?" Nero had followed Kyrie into choir, addicted to her joy for singing. And it was fine, being laughed at, until the possibility of affecting Kyrie's talent just by being there came to light.

Vergil shakes his head. "Most of mother's musical talent went to Dante. I can — all I can do is remember." Suddenly, in a second wind, he rises to his feet and places the plush with the rest of his personal stuff. His stare towards Nero is as determined as he'd been on the Qliphoth. "This _les préparatifs_. What is the role of the eldest in the house?"

Nero starts. "The eldest ... instructs on duty ... teaching the others ..."

Vergil walks to Nero. Nero doesn't realise he's moving back half a step until he has.

"Nero. I will teach you, and your family, these songs. And ... thank you." There it is; the sudden tension around the eyes, a faint pulling of skin into crows' feet. "Thank you for the present."

They stare at one another, each fighting against himself.

"... I should have done better."

For Nero, something shatters. Nero grabs at it, trying to keep it together, except it's the same as Credo's funeral, suddenly thrust with what responsiblity comes to the eldest in the house. It's thoughts of losing Credo and running up the Qliphoth and beating blood into the ground and wings manifesting in a thousand pounds of thunder cackling louder than the fury blinding blue bursting brilliantly from ley line veins —

And then he realises it. His spectral wings cradle him inside Vergil's repentant embrace.

It's been a long time since he last cried inside a hug.

* * *

> _October 5     5:36 PM_
> 
> _..._

The door has long closed behind Nero's back yet the stuffed doll is still in existence. Vergil has no doubt. It's a plush of his Sin Devil Trigger. Not perfect, but an imperfect memory must be the last of Nero's faults. The fact that it's handmade is more than obvious, the stitching slightly uneven, but it's still wide and soft. Adorable, really. And for Nero to gift him a symbol of his own power ...

What is he to make of that?

"Really lucked out with a kid like that, didn't you?"

Vergil looks around. The dragon's tail tucks further into the crook of his arm. "... Lady." What a strange moniker.

Her eyes linger on the toy before she throws him a paper menu. "I'm getting us takeout tonight. Choose what you want." She pauses. "Good work on the last job."

Vergil nods. They have a working relationship as roommates. Compared to the first few days, the tension has long simmered down.

She waits for him to decide what he wants. "How's your search for identification coming along?"

"Nothing in the old house. Mother ... must have destroyed everything. Except a few trifles." Vergil indicates the nearby trunk. "I will be checking the national record of births next."

Lady makes a noise of acknowledgement. It suddenly feels crowded, so Vergil randomly points at one of the restaurant's specials to get rid of her.

To his surprise, she takes a seat on the filing cabinet where Nero was instead of leaving.

"You've got a lot to make up for." She looks him in the eye. "He's deciding to try, for some reason, so it's no longer about you. You'd better remember that. You and Dante both."

"Dante cannot remember anything unless it has to do with not having olives on it."

"Point," she says, "but not the point. You have to make up for him not being here for Nero too."

"Nero is not weak."

She gives him a weird look, pinching her mouth, eyes narrowing beneath her brow. 

Vergil feels the need to elaborate. "He is ... like Dante. Stronger than I."

"We're talking about the same Dante who fucks off with no reasons?"

Vergil nods, because it's also the same Dante who was chosen for melding sword and soul against the Sword of Sparda.

For a second, Vergil blinks and is back to failing in the Room of Fallen Ones.

"I think I need to shoot something," Lady mutters, "preferably red and breathing."

"When we were children, he would often run out. He will return when he wants."

"I still don't know what that guy is thinking sometimes." She takes the menu and goes to place their order.

Vergil puts the toy down and stares at Dante's trinkets. The toy falls sideways, unbalanced by its tail. Vergil thinks on all that's happened since mother's death and how Dante still manages to come out the victor.

If he, unlike Nero, never wants to see him after his crimes ... Vergil can understand that.

"Neither do I."


	4. By Property of Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Recap:**  
>  "I still don't know what that guy is thinking sometimes." She takes the menu and goes to place their order. 
> 
> Vergil puts the toy down and stares at Dante's trinkets. The toy falls sideways, unbalanced by its tail. Vergil thinks on all that's happened since mother's death and how Dante still manages to come out the victor. 
> 
> If he, unlike Nero, never wants to see him after his crimes ... Vergil can understand that. 
> 
> "Neither do I."

> _October 11     7:03 PM_
> 
> ...

He wakes to the sound of water dripping distantly onto an aluminium surface, that stubborn leak in his eaves. Tak-tak. Closer than the droplets is the hum of wheels from Patty rolling one of her carts around. Brrr-tak-tak. Closer still, within three to five feet, a faint twinkling distinctive to ceramic. Tak-ting-tak-tak-brrr. Now it's been years since the last time it happened, but he can still recognise the signs of Patty about to co-opt him into one of her schemes, each as unbelievable as the last—

Dante opens his eyes to find Devil May Cry's office a dream away.

Within the unfamiliar room is a long, messy table. The woman with dark hair is working over it. He remembers red liquid dripping down her arms and so the billowing white ruffles over the elbows of today's white and black shift is either brave or undeniably stupid. She's cutting the sides off two sandwiches on a white plate. The bread crusts removed, they're brushed aside, and the results are cut twice from corner to corner until eight petite triangles remain.

Dante tests his mouth. The metal bar is still in his gums yet the soreness has faded. "You couldn't have brought some pizza, pretty miss?"

She turns to look at him. "Good evening." Her purple ear drops have been changed for pearls.

To taunt or not to taunt, well—that is never a question.

"What's with the sleeves?" he asks. "Planning to audition for Shakespeare?" Invisibly, he shifts to test the restraints. "Can I suggest one of the witches? You'd seem like a fantastic fit."

"You mean ' _fair is foul and foul is fair_ '?"

Dante's eyebrows rise into his hairline. "Why, ' _hover through the fog and filthy air_ '."

He stops once she picks up the ceramic plate and approaches the test tube tank. She climbs up a small stepladder and her boots clack-clack against the wooden platform that brings her eye level above his. The way it echoes, it sounds processed by a factory; perhaps panels made of MDF where glue replaces natural woody resonance. "How did you sleep?"

"Can't remember a thing." Dante cranks up his charm and grins. It's difficult to move for some reason. He's managed to confirm that cuffs are still around his wrists, but that's everything. "So ... what's your name?"

She leans over him, the pearls on her ears shining in the light. "Mars."

His grin becomes a smirk. "Didn't you know that's actually a man?"

"That's what my parents wanted, too."

"Mummy and daddy know their precious daughter's keeping a boy in her room?"

A cloudy memory enters her eyes. The next moment it's shed like old bark. 

"They're dead." She taps his chin with the fork. "Open up."

"As wonderful as it is to be served, I can feed myse—"

A triangle of bread gags him.

Mars ignores his theatrical gurgles, continuing. "That's really quite unlikely, Dante. The paralysis in your nervous system has had six days of growth to root itself. And I see you have questions." Her following smile is not unkind as she stabs another triangle. "If you finish your meal, I'll tell you."

The sandwiches are strange, though nothing special: ham, rocket, mustard, and cranberry sauce. If the domain of knowledge is a garden, Dante wants nothing to do with its harvest. He's gone without food before, easy. The devil in his blood can survive without this type of sustenance. The contentedness from a full stomach still leaves his human satisfied.

Six slices later, he realises he can feel his toes again.

She eats one of the crusts as he chews on slice number seven. He realises he hasn't considered the possibility the food could be drugged or poisoned. He's got regenerative powers. What a human concern that is, really.

"How much do you know about Underworld biota?" says Mars.

"Is this gonna be an explanation or a biology lesson, teach?"

"Please, humour me."

Dante thinks about his handful of excursions to the Underworld, even as he wiggles his toes to check his range of movement. Nothing but numbness; he could have a cinder block around his ankles and he wouldn't know. "No idea." Come to think of it, she mentioned a paralysis, didn't she ...

"Then from the basics: demons exist for two reasons, to kill and to survive. Both flora and fauna battle for power and breed for dominance. Sometimes they'll do both, indiscriminately." She pauses. "Do you know the difference between human and demon blood, to demons?"

"Human is more powerful. Second is —" Dante pauses. "Richer. I guess."

He's studied for a few seconds. Then she goes down the steps before retrieving a folder. "What you call 'richness' is a kind of demon knowledge — instinct, tied to blood, you could say. When a demon defeats another, the victor gains a portion of the loser's knowledge, instincts and power. Human blood, on the other hand, lacks the knowledge component. In essence, human blood grants power pure and undisrupted." She flips through the pages. "Human blood is also far more potent because its power comes from living cells."

"Living cells?"

"Living blood. The stuff of life. Dead blood is useless, yes? Life is taken by demons as pure power." She pauses on a page, removing it. "Compared to humans, demon flesh is closer to crystal, and plants do not possess consciousness. Unlike demonic fauna, which evolve based on the development of their instincts, driven to seek territory and conquest in search of new pieces of knowledge once they reach a certain power, flora care only for the strength present in their environment."

Mars engages the lever and flips to another section. "In an ordinary situation, a plant like the Qliphoth would need to be fed countless demons to grow to the stage where it may bear fruit. It has developed a symbiosis with the Empusa to achieve this: the Empusa collects the blood, allowing the Queen to then take in the knowledge and evolve. The Qliphoth receives a cut of the power, enough so that it may grow strong and provide them with natural shelter."

In the end, she gathers three pages. "This is the Qliphoth." She shows him a curved stake which seems familiar. "And these, are Empusa."

The last images are one: a photo from Red Grave; and two: little more than a sketch. Whatever he's meant to grasp, Dante has no clue, until suddenly he has no idea how he missed it. The scale of both Empusa are completely different. The Red Grave Empusa are about the size of a person, the full length from front to hind claws about three to four metres—he knows this from fighting them himself. In the sketch Dante sees a leaf the same size as the Empusa is tall. In life that leaf is half a metre long. "They grow a ton bigger in this realm. Eating all that human blood or something. So what?"

"Imagine. Through hundreds of thousands of years, demons have existed. Demons are evolving all the time. They fight and they reproduce. They eat other demons and grow stronger. But the balance of demons - evolved, unevolved, knowledge and intelligence - it has largely remained the same. There is no Qliphoth which has borne fruit without being cultivated, thus leading to its potent and legendary status. The one which struck Earth was encouraged to lay root with a powerful devil's blood. Yet why aren't there more powerful demons as they continually evolve and adapt? In Hell, you see - nothing changes because they _cannot_.

"The balance in the Underworld is maintained by the scavengers."

Dante flashes through a whirlwind of thoughts. He settles with, "How do you know this?"

She shuffles the images back together and goes to return them to the folder.

"There is a specific strain of diabolopathogenic fungi which is carried by Empusa. Should a demon that encounters its spores be of a certain strength—and this may be through consuming it, or becoming infected by it—it will take over the host's cells and drain it of power. We have cultivated a sample of this to be greedy, unconcerned by everything but consuming demonic power. We are releasing it at every Hell crack which could allow a demon to pass. But it is just an irritant to demons which are truly strong. Anything greater than a Nobody can flush the spores from their system with enough strength and time.

"And this is where you come in, Dante. Like a vaccine, you are helping it evolve and eliminate everything with strength up until the power of Sparda."

There's the sound of wheels again in the distant background. Not Patty's cart, some other one. Perhaps filled with trays of this otherworldly fungi like buckets of toy soldiers. Materialised in this realm and very real.

"You're —"

He breaks off, realising he can't make a taunt out of the air caught in his chest.

The woman who is the reason that no demons have wreaked havoc since The Red Grave Disaster says, "We call it _Nosos_."

Mars eats the last piece of crust on the ceramic plate and busies herself at the table. The sound from the cart makes an irregular rhythm atop the everpresent generator hum. In the air hovers a smell of ash and blood. A mix of human and devil. The red fluid inside the test tube tank is both types of blood plus another aqueous solution that can't be pinpointed, yet still clings to the roof inside his mouth. Beside her the gramophone with its petunia horn rests in silence.

She reaches forwards, sleeves fluttering, her hands prising out the newspaper squashed under what looks like a photo album. The queen of magpies rifles through her hoard.

She notices his observation. "Would you like a read?"

It's the ordinary paper. Dante jerks his head in the negative. Mars makes a little motion with her hands, _your choice_ , and tosses aside the daily dose of deranged or different. It comes close enough to Dante that he can see the main headline. There's more assistance going out to people who lost their homes. Several million more dollars in public funding.

"Interesting, isn't it?" Mars remarks. "Humans. So meandering. Aimless. Always causing conflicts. But once we have a united cause, nothing is impossible."

"Yeah, humans are like that."

Her noise of agreement is drowned out by the sound of the tank pump kicking off. A handful of rising bubbles bump briefly against his legs. She appears to find what she's looking for in a small planner, and checks what notes are written.

"You would be happy to know that everything is going smoothly. The Nosos has developed enough resistance to survive whilst your human side is conscious. Your demon half, which draws power from your human half, is operating under control. In forty-eight hours I can free your hands or your jaw. Which would you prefer for pizza?"

"Hands," says Dante instantly. "Also, everything except olives on the pizza. Do you also have, yunno, magazines? I like Dominique Tereshkova."

A flutter of something goes through Dante as she confirms the spelling. Call him demon, spawn, filth, or suspicious, he's still a being that enjoys life's simplest of pleasures. He's wise enough to know what luxuries are, been abandoned enough to learn how to make the most of what he has left, and there's nothing sadder than a man who thinks open honesty is not the most valuable trait of a woman in power.

He's come to realise Mars has his respect. Similar to Lady and Trish. Same as Nell Goldstein. God if there's anything better than the company of that. Hard to forget she's his enemy, when above sixty percent of his body is neutralised through demonic paralysis or physical restraints, with what's left too weak to _break in_ , let alone break out. But she has no hatred for humanity. People. Watching her going about her goals isn't anything that'll go around hurting anyone.

He can multitask.

"What makes you work on this?" His voice is bored. He wonders how Vergil is doing, in this right murky hour, surrounded by the women that follow Dante around: the ones who do what they want and how they want to. "Just old, dead mum and pop? Demons kill 'em, headshots?"

"Would you say there's a difference between a bitter fool and a sweet one?" she deflects.

Dante remembers being asked something like that, following a tussle or another, Vergil with his book all curled up. "I don't know what you like about human folly," was his favourite complaint about Dante being chosen to pick their bedtime story. "Well, I know why you like those poems," Dante once retorted, trying to rehearse a show for their parents, ignored by prop assistant Vergil one time too many. They were old enough to have an inkling of what boys and men were meant to be like, so Dante spoke what the voice said in his veins, "They're all like you - short and pretty."

And the redness in Vergil's pale face was worth being clawed up then chewed out about after.

 _No_ , says the devil in his blood. Parts of their memory rearrange, lighting up, slide back into their usual place. The low priority brain damage from his forced unconsciousness reverses; restored. It's Dante not Vergil who asked that of himself. Dante and his love of performance playing all the parts from his favourite play. _Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet fool?_

Dante returns, "'Who is it that can tell me who I am?'"

Pity King Lear's wisdom goes over her head. He can see it in how she ignores him. "Pardon?"

"Woke up one morning, thought xenocide would be a great use of your life?"

She turns to see him. "That is a grave oversimplification."

A flash sparks at Dante and the devil. Victorious. They've found something.

"Nothing is ever that simple," she adds. "Few of the motivations in the world, those which push people to act, begin from a single reason like that. You really must not have been that old. I see you have yet to grow up."

And then her movements: purposeful, stiffened; they return to normal.

"No matter. I have lost many people to this world and the Underworld. I think about them whenever I doubt myself."

Something lodges in his chest. That hits Dante closer than he expects. "And if they come back?"

"Nothing can go back." She turns to see him. "Don't you agree?"

 _No_ , says the devil in his blood, born of anarchy and chaos. _Yes_. It never wants to agree with anything, that one, half who Dante is and half the reason for Dante's legendary mulishness. Half wilful, that makes him a quarter demon disobedience, but the human him doesn't remember ever learning maths just as it can't remember anything for years except raw despair. Losing mother. Losing Vergil. Until then, denying his father and refusing his father's name. That's some Shakespearean way to be alive, innit?

_—Heads, I go. Tails, you go._

What a way to live. Isn't it?

A calmness settles undisturbed. Vergil might be enjoying himself. Maybe not. It's all a coin toss with family like him.

She speaks through his sudden wordlessness. "You've fought so long, for so much, to cleanse the world and find revenge against the demons that ruined your future." Her words are seeds of truth. "I've spent years researching it." Her research is a references page he's never seen but the devil claims it to be true. "My business partners — friends — they're the same as us; we all have the same wish. I offer you: stay with me, here. We can destroy the demons together."

Gazing up, the ceiling judges him like a god of forgotten places. Tracts of wires behind pieces of exposed panelling. Small rivets dotted all across an elaborate pulley system that looks like it came out of the Cold War, a rounded barometric dial indicator with its needle zeroed and pointing south-west. The taunter has been taunted back. Shafts of beams illuminated by white light make a network of roads, consequences and choices along a quest of branching life.

"Maybe I'll think about it," Dante murmurs.

Mars looks at him, as the women around him are wont to do; skeptical with a dash of watching the passage of valuable time. Beyond that still is a lack of guard built upon a kind of trust, one the devil would have exploited were Dante more replete, more hale and whole. Togethered. He's two not one and sharing the same group of senses, fixed upon the bow of her lips shining red as rose. Her attention is odd, searching.

She says, out of nowhere, to herself, "He must have loved you. Sparda. A demon who abandoned everything to become a man."


	5. Quaesitum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Recap:**  
>  Mars looks at him, as the women around him are wont to do; skeptical with a dash of watching the passage of valuable time. Beyond that still is a lack of guard built upon a kind of trust, one the devil would have exploited were Dante more replete, more whole and hale. Togethered. He's two not one and sharing the same group of senses, fixed upon the bow of her lips shining red as rose. Her attention is odd, searching. 
> 
> She says, out of nowhere, to herself, "He must have loved you, Sparda. The demon who abandoned everything to become a man."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quaesitum (n) - something sought or required. (from Latin "to seek")

> _October 16     1:06 PM_
> 
> ...

"Oh!" exclaims a female voice, upon Vergil's return to the eaves beneath which sat Devil May Cry, "You're _twins!"_

Curious, because this light-haired woman staring in his direction holds no ill will nor ill intent, Vergil tucks the book he is holding further into his hold, and angles his head. "Twins?"

"Ah, sorry!" says the woman, composing herself, "You must be Vergil. Nero's told me about you. I'm Kyrie."

Vergil blinks and looks at the woman again. Light-haired, her figure tall and delicate in casual sportswear, she holds a towel in her hands and stands nonetheless with a straightness in her spine that suggests of some inner convictions, weak as they may be.

Vergil has seen women like her before.

"Vergil Spar—" he starts to introduce himself. He stops. "Vergil. What business has you here? I do not think Nero is present." Vergil is relatively confident in the latter, not sensing any lingering buzzing in the air which comes from demonic powers.

Kyrie shakes her head. "Lady has been teaching me some self-defence."

A brief silence follows. He remembers he is classified an occupant, which means she is ... a visitor. "Would you ... want tea?"

When Kyrie smiles, it's as if the clouds have opened over an overcast day — she is delighted to be speaking with him despite not knowing him, and perhaps it speaks for his relation to Nero when Vergil understands in complete clarity the gentle kindness his son sees in this soft, beautiful woman.

"No, it's quite alright," she says, "I'm heading to change, and won't be long."

"Ah."

"We absolutely must do tea, next visit." Kyrie nods. "I should bake. Do you like almonds? Any allergies?"

"Almonds are fine. I am ... allergic to ..." Vergil stops. What is it? He reaches for the memory he knows exists and meets nothing. "I will have Nero inform you when I recall it."

Kyrie doesn't appear to mind his crumbled memories. "Okay. Monday afternoon?"

"That is acceptable."

"Monday it is," she enthuses.

As suddenly as the invitation had come, Kyrie excuses herself and goes into one of the back rooms, leaving Vergil by himself. Vergil opts not to dwell on it and retreats to his second-favourite reading space, the one near the bar, recognising that someone should at least stay in the front office. He settles, cracks open his book - a new volume from the library - and tries to immerse himself in the story.

Through the walls, he hears Kyrie's voice. "Lady! Trish! I used what you taught me... did you know Vergil and Dante are twins?"

"I'm surprised. Nero didn't tell you?"

"Nero said they were brothers. The way he told it, I thought Vergil was, like, fifty!"

Laughter follows that remark. When is the last time he's heard anything like that?

There's a pause as Kyrie gathers herself. "They look nothing alike."

"Can't blame you for thinking that. Without trying to sense their aura, the only time they look the same is when they're talking about each other."

Vergil realises he's been staring at ink and paper somewhere three pages in. He flips ahead. The foreword is written by a guest author, a journalist telling a treatise about devils and men; the events of a decade which Vergil was a part of; a tower raised from ancient ruins that dragged people to Hell. Unsolved modern crimes is what this book is supposed to be about, not musings about the nature of the human world by someone with too much time.

Without hesitating, Vergil skips to the first chapter.

He doesn't know when the singing started. He notices it when it's filled the whole of the front office, blanketing vacant space in kindness.

"— _Lu la la li la._ "

Vergil closes his book. Kyrie, wearing now a long dress which sweeps around her ankles, is the source of the music. He'd sensed her return for a short while. "Lula la lila?"

She turns to him and sings her verse again:

          _Vous qui errez,_  
          _Le Spalda vous trouvera;_  
          _Courbez la tête devant le Rédempteur,_  
          _Courbez la tête devant le Seigneur;_  
          _Lu la la li la._

As the foreign words sound freely through the melody, she steps, once, twice, footsteps deft in her walking shoes, her stockings visible for brief moments at a time.

"That song ..." says Vergil, "Is that ... also les préparatifs?"

"Ah, no. It's called 'The Eve of the End'. Les préparatifs is only the beginning of October, up to the eighth." It occurs to Vergil that her glances at him are so many they might be considered rude by normal humans. Vergil questions it to Kyrie's slight smile. "You — you're a twin? Pardon me, but I really can't see either of you in each other."

"I've heard."

"You have?"

A small smile slips onto his mouth as he glances to the back. "Just now."

Kyrie flushes in clear embarrassment, and Vergil has no idea why. Dante is the flirty one. Vergil has never pretended to know women, nor ever understood anything about the reactions by women from Fortuna.

Unlike Dante, Vergil remembers his lessons on manners, so he doesn't mention it. He waits for her to compose herself.

It takes a short while.

Kyrie makes a slight cough. "What are you reading?"

"Mysterious Crimes - Decrees of Silence." She does not seem disinterested, so he continues. "This chapter is on crimes which should have made noise, but were reported with unusual lack of sound."

"They wouldn't be the work of demons?"

"No. Some of them are impossible. Demons are incapable of considering compassion." Vergil looks back at the pages. "The jilted lover who stabs her boyfriend in the back in the middle of a suburban car park, but slashes his throat so he doesn't have to die by drowning in his own blood. The retiree who fought his caregiver until she fell unconscious, and cleans the dishes before calling for an ambulance. A family which was murdered, their home left with its shelves open and drawers upturned, sheets and mattresses shredded by what looks like giant claws, but the bodies moved after death to lie at peace—"

He breaks off, realising that Kyrie has gone a little green behind her hand. Oh.

Vergil clears his throat. "My... apologies."

"It's okay." She smiles. "I didn't realise you liked reading. Nero actually got himself banned from the library in Fortuna. Do you ... read these things often?"

"No."

Kyrie falters. "I ... see."

Vergil makes to depart and fails. His muscles, paralysed, prevent him from leaving. 

He searches for the source of this entrapment and notices Kyrie's fingers tightening around her towel. So she is why. Yes. Vergil acknowledges the power she has is the same power his son is drawn to.

"No," he elaborates, "I was originally using the library as a reference, to ... look in the national index for the records of mine and Dante's births. But I found myself almost drawn to these kinds of texts." Vergil glances down at his book, memorises the page number, and snaps it closed. "These stories of dignity and depravity betwixt the classical ideal. That humans are naturally the more understanding species among us."

"It's not always true," says Kyrie. "There's a saying in Fortuna that the Saviour brings fairness. That He, being a demon, can tell right from wrong, and human empathy is what's sometimes to blame ..."

"And?"

Kyrie jumps. "No — Nothing! Don't ... don't worry about it." She shakes her head. "I shouldn't have brought religion into what you were talking about. Really, I'm sorry for my habits." 

Vergil wonders what it is that's upsetting this gentle-loving woman that his warm-blooded son loves. Kyrie's hands have started smoothing along a baton, an item used in her training. Her eyes meet his again and he understands he's to accept this topic won't continue.

"Did you manage to find your birth records?" she asks.

"I did not. There is no 'Vergil Sparda' nor 'Dante Sparda'."

There's a flickering in Kyrie's face. She folds her towel in half and then in half once again, her gaze falling off of Vergil, the distance beyond the windows more use for recollecting.

"Well ... Sparda didn't speak English when he met the Order. The language of our reverent forebearers is French, the continental _lingua franca_."

"French?"

"Mmhmm." The folded towel wraps around her baton. "Maybe ... that's why you can't find anything? And you're not remembering completely either. It could be that your surname isn't 'Sparda'."

* * *

> _October 17     8:22 AM_
> 
> ...

"I could kill you before you blink," he says blandly to his assembled audience, all of which are smirking.

How did it get to this? Vergil is the first to say he has no idea.

Yet Nico, Trish and Lady are there, watching him making a fool of himself, and he has nothing he can really say to reclaim it.

"Yeah, ya could, V-meister," says Nico, using that utterly nonsensical nickname, but he'll humour answering to it if that's what he must, "but if ya killed me, how're you gonna get those extra notes that pop kept for my inheritance? The ones to do with _the Yamato?"_

Vergil's fingers tighten over the wrapping of his sword. "If you have any parties, I'll personally ensure your attendance is as confetti," he says aloud, in case his expression isn't enough to convey it.

"Well, right. Good thing I'm not someone who likes to celebrate her birthday."

There's a snort in the back from Trish at this. Vergil's attention is onto her immediately. "What, demon woman?"

Trish uncrosses her legs. "You haven't changed. Not since we last met." 

"I have said this: V is of me, but he is not me —"

"When we both served Mundus," she cuts him off. Then she pauses, more for the crowd, and he knows what she'll say before she says it: "Nelo."

Her audience hears and mishears it. They exchange glances like they're coming to strange conclusions. Vergil doesn't care what they're basing them on - Mundus, the wrongful ruler of the Underworld, or the name which sounds so much like his son's.

"Incidentally, I wouldn't have any idea what your real surname is," Trish adds with a quirk of her brow.

Lady leans closer. "Real surname?"

"Half-breed here is looking for his birth documents. Being such a megalomaniac, it's unlikely he'll forget his own first name. A missing surname - that's the theory that Kyrie was suggesting."

The office has walls which echo sound for people with the right ears. Of course her hearing inside is as good as his.

"Why might he think ya know?" asks Nico.

Trish gestures to Vergil. "Dante saved me after I was created in the image of their mother."

"Huuuhh."

Not for the first time, Vergil thinks about how he doesn't understand anything about the women who follow his brother. He'd thought the Mary-which-would-be-Lady curious, though her hatred for demons familiar, and with Dante being half-devil he'd assumed she'd leave as soon as she was done with her business, yet she seems to have become his closest friend somehow. Trish, saved by Dante, when Nelo Angelo was lost to the void without his half of the Perfect Amulet to bind him to this plane. Why does this freed Trish hang about? And then Nico. Dante hardly keeps any research worth more than a peanut. She makes the most sense to Vergil, however. His time as V has reasoned to him enough about how the woman called Nico clicks.

It's because Vergil is staring at Nico that he catches an odd look flitting beneath her long lashes. He hears his name tossed around and decides to listen to the women gossiping.

"— figure it's obvious," says Nico. "Not like Dante's any different, but I think he'd've worked it out, he's tha' kinda man."

Vergil narrows his eyes. "What?"

Nico glances to Vergil from her seat as if she could possibly have forgotten his presence. "Yer name."

"Tell me at once."

"Ehhhh. How 'bout no."

Vergil grits his teeth. But Vergil is without pride. What prideful person could stab their crumbling self?

He knows this.

Closing his eyes and bowing, Vergil says, with all conviction: 

"... Please."

First there's a hiccup. Half a giggle. Nothing bad, nothing worse. Then one of the vultures laugh in a hyena's mocking verse. 

The devil roars retribution coated in bitterness, mercurial in his chest and those chambers, his pulse alight with blue-cursed flames.

These wretching ribs will gouge his anima from his skin? 

Nico exists here in life to bring bright mockery onto him.

A hand moves to beside his ear, leaving no shadow. Nico doesn't hesitate to enter his personal space, her eyes narrowed, and an unusual smile perched in the quirking of her lips. "Mebbe if you git ya head outta yer ass an' realise what's staring you in the face."

Vergil doesn't answer. He doesn't move, fixed statue-stiff. It takes everything he has not to cut off her head.

Abruptly, her hand drops onto his shoulder.

"Cuz' Dante fucked off, I reckon Sparda was also the type that made sacrifices for love," she says, a weird look in her eyes, "don't you?"

She swipes at his coat. Vergil is too stunned by the idea that Dante is emulating their father to do anything but allow her to touch him.

* * *

> _October 17     10:17 AM_
> 
> ...

What makes people into people is when they help others they don't know.

It's a very _Dante_ thought to have, and Vergil doesn't have the excuse of being in Devil May Cry to justify having it. This lack of justification has nagged at him ever since talking to the women, telling him that their assistance isn't on the basis of obligation, and Vergil cuts it down every time it waves at him like a Dante in that god-awful shirtless getup. Mother didn't raise them so they could get themselves sick.

This is why Vergil lets Yamato do the talking.

Nico's voice echoes. _Mebbe if you git ya head outta yer ass an' realise what's staring you in the face._

Vergil allows himself one last sigh before pushing the door to the record shop open. A soft twinkling from above echoes him. He glides through, walking until he reaches the other side. 

Despite the deliberation in his footsteps, it's a small handful of strides until he reaches the other end of the room. Vergil takes in a breath as he turns around, his coat hovering for a moment. The shelves arranged along the floor and its items lined up in its hold are incredibly unfamiliar. Vergil is a reader of books, not a plucker in a field of flat vinyls. What began as an idea of leaving a gift for Dante, in case he'd angered his youngest brother somehow, has evolved into an absolutely egregious abomination.

The scoping out of the shop is completed with more promptness than he would be confident admitting aloud, and Vergil finds himself at a loss.

"Are you certain you'll wish to buy that?"

The speaker is a woman with dark hair. She's tall, her height reaching his nose, and she barely needs to glance upwards to meet his gaze. Her fingers, familiar in their elegance, gesture towards the envelope he'd taken out of curiosity.

It takes a few seconds before she seems to realise he has no understanding of the name, the artist, the producer, nor the record company. "Ah - you're buying a gift, is that right?"

Slowly, Vergil nods.

"Well ... that copy you're holding? I'm looking for it, and - that is the last copy in the store." She smiles, kindly. "If you are not here for it specifically, may I have it? I would be happy to assist you in finding a gift for your friend."

Vergil pauses. Dante, his friend? Not the Dante that laughs into his face. Ludicrous.

Still, there is something kind about her that makes him think they've once met. Vergil looks closer now and sees aristocratic features, matched by the golden thorns on her earrings and necklace dangling over a dress as red as wine. She guides him with fine shoulders and gestures to the different genres with her small hands. Her questions about his brother's tastes and the names of any records Vergil's seen surprise him in her dedication to this ... vinyl medium.

At one point, she turns her head as Vergil leans forwards, and their faces are separated by an instant. She blinks at him and her eyes sharpen in something like recognition.

Vergil, too, has recognised what memory he's seeing. "You ..." he begins.

"Pardon me," says the woman, still kindly.

Seeing her move away in that red dress, the words leave Vergil's mouth as if to follow. "Have you ever had a child?"

"What?"

Vergil stills without expounding on his answer. Something blooms in her expression then, softening her jaw, and she hides a smile behind her hair. "Do you ... ask that to all women you meet?"

"You look familiar ... like we have met before."

"Well." Her eyes scan over him. "I can't say the same of you."

A record recommended to him, hers in her grasp, they make their way towards the counter.

"Is there any music you like?" she asks him, stopping suddenly.

"... Christmas carols."

"For —?"

"For ... my memories."

She thinks about it, then detours to fetch something. "Your friend might enjoy his album, but you may instead prefer this one." In her hands is a package lined with red and white. 

Vergil accepts it and finds he's already taken a liking to her.

"Ms. Amari-Elle," the clerk greets, once Vergil has paid for both his items and it is her turn to pay for hers. "Just this today?"

Amari-Elle confirms and completes her purchase.

The bell above the door chimes again on their exit. He's about to leave along his own path when he hears her voice again.

"I really must thank you," she tells him. "You've been generous to give this up to me. If I may ask ... are you the brother of the investigator Dante, the one called Vergil?"

Vergil pauses. "... So we have met."

"We have not." She shakes her head. "Your brother is really well-known, and I simply know him in passing."

"I see. You are ... Amari-Elle?"

"Amari, please. Mars Amari. My husband is no longer with me." Her gaze breaks away into the distance. "David was ... truly wonderful before perishing in the robbery."

David.

_"I'm looking for power," said Vergil._

_The girl in red brushed across his chin with fine fingers, tracing along a youthful face decorated with the faintest hint of stubble. "Yes, Vergil." Her dress sighed as gravity took hold, collapsing like petals of a rose in a storm. "So am I."_

"I'm looking for someone," Vergil says suddenly. As soon as the words leave his mouth, the feeling of being foolish floods through a body which has been exposed so much it cannot truly feel shame any more. His brother has left him like his father and he can't remember his once-lover's face because he'd summoned the end of the world and gone through hell. He's already bowed to Arkham and to Mundus and to Nico, what is once more? He's already abandoned everything for power, and now he's looking for any records of himself. "How should I ..."

"Music echoes the heart. Listen to music that they like, and try to understand what their feelings may have been."

"I know their feelings," says Vergil.

"You're sure?"

Vergil, holding two new vinyl records, makes steady eye contact with the woman who recommended them. He sees pity in the dark eyes of Mars Amari-Elle. His name is not David, and she is not his fallen rose. He tries to forget ever having entertained the possibility.

She says, "I wish you all the best in your journeys."

He's left alone on the street and the wind picks up through the ends of his coat.

Nico's voice echoes. _Mebbe if you git ya head outta yer ass an' realise what's staring you in the face._

Amari. Husband. Amari-Elle.

Vergil suddenly realises how to find his origins and what eludes him.

* * *

> _October 17     12:33 PM_
> 
> ...

He goes to the library so quickly, some passers-by would claim to witness a blue blur teleporting.

Vergil walks up to the counter in the back. "I would like to check the marriage registry."

"Name?" The clerk asks.

A stop to Devil May Cry and a search of his salvaged belongings has given him what he needs. He's been young, once, and asked his mother why her older books hold a different name. The book in his hands is flipped open and placed before the clerk so it may be read. "Eva Brzezicka."

The clerk gives him a nod and taps away at one of those bumped keyboard things, looking at the box called a monitor which Vergil always presumed to be a different kind of television.

"Won't be a moment," says the clerk. "Hold on tight."

Vergil isn't sure what he can hold onto, or even if he needs to hold onto anything. But once the clerk comments, "Guess that tree got you too, didn't it? There's been an influx of late," Vergil concludes this person really must live an inane life as a talkative fellow.

"There she is. Miss Eva, married to one _le Spalda_." The clerk clicks around with the mouse. The printer whirrs, and he retrieves a copy which he gives to Vergil. "Here you go."

A feeling washes over Vergil as he takes it. It's not unlike the time he stared into books and books, searching for the right clue to obtain his father's power. Apprehension tickles the hair on his arms. Vergil doesn't hesitate. He reads the characters.

          Lucas LE SPALDA  
          married to Eva BRZEZICKA.

          November 1st, 19XX.

It lists their two children: Vergil and Dante Isundretson.

Vergil has just finished asking for a copy of his and Dante's legal documents when the clerk does a double-take.

"Ah hey, Dante, I didn't recognise your face!" The clerk looks Vergil up and down. "The Vie de Marli texts you asked for finally got in. Justine can show you where they are once you're done.

"Now your papers may take up to six weeks to arrive. It's all the backlog, afraid to say. You'll need to come here when you're contacted and pay a small fee, so if you could leave us your contact details ... Is that everything?"

"It is." Vergil pauses. "Thank you."

"Not a problem."


	6. The Love that Moves the Sun

> _October 18     9:50 AM_
> 
> _..._

"Hooh, ha ha! Yes! Yes! _Yes!_ "

Nico's voice is loud in the confines of the van. Alone, her brilliance is witnessed by nobody.

"I am a genius," she says, remembering to acknowledge her own virtues in spite of dead silence. That's what the doctor said about absent parents doing little-to-nothing to help her self-esteem whilst she'd been navigating life as a teenager. Which, thanks, Dr. Obvious. Nico thinks for a moment, then decides to find Kyrie or Nero so she can at least showcase her awesomeness to somebody on this planet. The door rattles open as she jumps out and Nico makes a note to grease its track some other time.

Nico finds Nero but not Kyrie buried in a pile of once-orphans all wanting a ride on his shoulders while he's in Devil Trigger. She shoves her head into Nero's vision and smirks.

"Looks like our Tarzan's become the local jungle gym," she remarks.

Predictably, Nero is not impressed by this observation. He doesn't explode, however, simply flashing her a spectral finger when none of the little tykes are looking. D'aww. He loves the kids. Nico does value their friendship, sort of. Enough that she stifles a shit-eating grin.

"Alright," Nero says to her, after the kids are all entertained and satisfied from their big bro's strength, "what do you want, Nico?"

He flashes from smooth scales into his human appearance. Nico figures from how his head is tilted, he's not listening proper, yet. "Nuuuthin'."

"Fuck, Nico. I'm not an idiot."

"Nah, you just decided to go take crap like extended bible studies like an idiot."

"Listen, it was run next to the music room when Kyrie had choir, right? How did you even find out— Wait." Nero stops himself. "You got something good, don't you?"

"Ne'er said I did."

"Fuck off. You only make that face when you've got something good."

Busted. "Fine, but ya might wanna sit down. Don't want you fainting, yeah?"

Nero rolls his eyes, taking her remark about as well as she assumes. Well, ain't like he cares a snitch about her talking shit to banish the distant, troubled shadow weighing down his scowl. She's still pleasantly surprised when he listens and takes a seat by the counter without a single complaint her way.

Man. Kyrie has him _whipped_.

True to her word, Nico reaches into her pocket and holds up a small, zip-locked pouch, not much bigger than a business card. Inside the pouch sits two short, white strands of hair.

She smiles. The Sparda family sure made her life into a certain kind of hell, but they make it easy – and that's why she's known as a genius.

"I got a way to track any bits of Dante's power," she says, waving the baggy, "an' it's all because of and by usin' these bits of Vergil."

"... That's what I think it is?"

"It's yer old man's hair." Nico grins. "Them twins are pretty identical on their demon frequencies."

"Right. Hair. Meaning... we find Dante?"

"Yeh. We can find Dante."

Nico watches as the worry in Nero's gaze transforms into shock. His hands clench around nothingness. He stares into space and his eyes land on a small wooden figurine of V's Nightmare which Vergil had carved for him in a marvellous display of Yamato's power.

When his expression unwittingly mists over into honest hope, Nico bites her tongue and doesn't have the heart to tell him.

* * *

> _October 20     11:01 AM_
> 
> _– Two days later_ –
> 
> ...

In a store on the south end of town, the end of Jonathan Keyes's shift comes and goes. He doesn't work in a large shop, nor does he have a stake in the family business; he's one of many who once decided that the rumours of demons are frankly nonsense and moved to the city to find a job, maybe a lucky girl. Then the Red Grave Disaster hit, and blimey, what a way to make demons mainstream within a hundred miles. Everyone's making noise about moving overseas, moving into the country. He thinks he's lucky to have survived at all.

He looks back at the clock and wonders if it can go faster. "You better get here soon, Alex."

When the door opens, and it's not Alexandria Amari, Jonathan curses in his head and aims for a smile. "Welcome —"

Jonathan blinks at the sight of the woman in a collared shirt and a clipboard, taken aback at her bright yellow hard hat. A glance outside shows a car parked on the street.

"Good morning, sir," says the woman. "Would you be the owner?"

He realises she's not a customer. "Are you here for something?"

"Emma Beaumont, from the Municipal Grave Recovery Unit. In working with the restoration crews I've noticed something concerning this building's foundations. If you wouldn't mind, I would need to have a look around."

Emma Beaumont has short, blonde hair around large black eyes. It matches the colour of her shirt, and the tilt of her lips brushed with natural makeup suggests these inspections are jobs she does all the time. Jonathan makes the mistake of looking at her chest and seeing a sliver of pink.

A fluster goes up his neck. He thinks it might be her bra.

"Erm, would you be able to wait, uhh, ma'am?" says Jonathan, very aware no one's told him about a council lady in a shirt wearing a pink bra. "Boss's daughter will be here soon, then I'm sure you'll be able to do so."

"Ms. Amari?"

"Yeah."

Beaumont raises her clipboard in a small gesture. "I have called ahead. Ms. Amari is aware of this inspection."

"Then, uhhhh. Go ahead."

As the young man called Jonathan returns to his life, Lady surveys the shop through her coloured contacts.

"I won't be long," she promises the shop boy, trying a generous smile. He goes red and baulks.

Well. That will give her a little more time.

* * *

> _October 18     10:42 AM_
> 
> _– Two days earlier –_
> 
> _..._

"... Are you serious?"

Nico leans back against the counter. "Am I ever not serious when it comes to these _beautiful_ creations of mine?"

Nero stares at her for a very long moment, clearly waiting for her to grace him with the pinnacle of understanding.

Nico continues grinning. How can she possibly reject such an opportunity?

"This baby here," and she gestures to a small, dome-shaped item with two antennae, "is a creation I've been experimenting with fer a century. Give it some demon stuff, some demon blood, and it'll pick up a target species signature utterly fantastic. The demon blood'll power it like a battery, see. An' then my baby'll tell us where to go to get searchin'."

"You were serious."

"'Course. But I'm outta demon blood, so if you wanna find Dante, cough up."

"Can't you get some random demons?"

"When's the last time ya saw a demon?"

Nero opens his mouth, then closes it. The most exciting development they've had since the Qliphoth was the week Nero spent in bed, coughing up white phlegm, while being lovingly nursed by Kyrie. All their money's come through work as cleanup and consultants, until Kyrie asked Nero to spend some more time with the children, which meant it's just Nico who's been stuck doing the consulting. Plenty of time to unroll some old blueprints and make some prototypes with everything she's learned from all that devil arm making.

It explains why Nero hasn't walked off yet, since he knows he owes her and she's come to collect from him.

Nico isn't complaining. "I'll need yer hair and yer blood."

"What about Trish?"

"Trish said she wanted to check something about the Qliphoth's roots," says another voice.

Lady appears in the garage and walks past, giving them a wave as she ducks into a corner she's borrowed until she gets her own space.

Nico holds a hand out to Nero. "Ya wanna do this the easy way, or..." She glances to her trusty, beloved hacksaw.

Soon enough, Nero's handing her some hair from his head. Nico takes the hair for a folder labelled 'Nero', which is already filled with some distinctive white curls, stashes the collection away, and then pops open the blood collection chamber on the tracker. "Alright, put ya blood in there."

To Nero's credit, it doesn't take long before he realises he's been played. "Oi —"

"Didn't yours truly have to confirm the tracker works first? I had to test her to see if she could find you. Let me tell ya, yer lucky the twins are identical —"

"The fuck? You already had mine!"

Nico smirks. "Went through your laundry. Nice underwear."

"You —"

...

Eventually, Nero gives into contributing his blood, an agreement is reached that nobody owes anyone any more shit, and the satisfying inhale after small rows of demonic lights flicker on like fireflies is a moment to truly savour.

"Now we give Dante a taste of our sweet kicks?" asks Nero, watching the antennae come alive, swivelling on insectoid joints.

Lady says, "Now I take over from here."

She returns from her corner the same as she'd entered, but something about her looks different. Nero blinks and realises her eyes are the same colour.

"Want a hand?" he asks. A set of spectral hands fizzle into existence. Their knuckles crack like small thunderbursts.

"No offence, Shocker, but when there's no demons around you're not the most subtle kid in town. This kind of work is easier on my own."

"Finding Dante?" Nero scowls when Lady nods. "Didn't know you had a reason to do that."

"Same to you." Lady nods to Nero, and then Nico. "Don't you worry. Dante should know by now that it's going straight onto his tab. He can't disappear from me until he pays it back."

Her dry laugh cuts through the sudden silence. Then she sobers.

"In all the time I've known him, he's never pulled this," she confides. "The closest would be... when he was late coming back from Dumary and needed a lift out of Hell. He wasn't nearly as destructive after he saved someone who looks like his dead mother. Even then, he's never disappeared on me without asking for something. I've known him for a long time, and whatever it is, it might be dangerous. Both of you should prepare to move if we need you to come in."

"Who's 'we'?" Nero asks.

Lady looks to Nico with a smile, and Nico, having been one of the original masterminds of their plan, smirks back.

They say almost in unison, "You'll find out."

* * *

> _October 20     11:17 AM_
> 
> _..._

"As I thought, there's been damage to the fire exit."

Jonathan Keyes's face says he has no idea if that's important. "You mean it's broken?"

"When was the last time it was used, do you know?" The boy shakes his head. "It looks as if the disruptions in the ground have caused minor misalignment in the frame, which means there's a risk the door may fail to open in the case of emergency. But I did see a keyhole on the outside, and I have replacement parts in the car. I'm a certified locksmith, and I'll be able to fix it if I can have access. Would you happen to have the key?"

"Uh, yes. Here it is."

Lady, as Emma Beaumont, takes the key and makes a note on her clipboard. It's a single-sided key, as the keyhole had suggested. As Lady adds a few more official-looking details, she takes a moment to ask if she's able to take the key around to the car.

Jonathan agrees.

At the car she ducks out of sight for the briefest of moments, taking some photos of the key in question. She returns with a toolkit filled with hardware, tools, and miscellaneous pieces of residential locks, then uses the props to make a fair enough show. Then she demonstrates there has never been anything wrong with the door.

And then she's gone.

Inside the car, Nico's tracking device is all-but-screeching underneath a scrounged blanket. Lady ignores it, driving a few blocks away. There she stops for fifteen minutes to duplicate the key from the photo, using a dog-eared code book and a code cutter from the time Mary learned locksmithing. She drops the clipboard, her disguise, the tracking device and her tools back at Devil May Cry. Then she changes her clothes before the rental car is returned to the owners, and heads back to the target destination.

The shop in question is the lowest level in a building three storeys tall, the type of set-up where the lowest floor is retail, the middle level for smaller, more specialised services, and the upper floor reserved as residential. A careful series of lookups have revealed to Lady that above the musical instruments shop is what was once a registered music school, and the entire building is owned by the Amari family. With the entrance to the second level boarded up and a tracker telling her this is the place, the most interesting place to look is the music school.

Lady has no reason to expect that the developer would not key alike all the fire exit doors, and sure enough, her key for the ground level turns open the one on the first floor. Her heart thudding at the base of her ribs, she holds her breath and turns the lock closed. The door never swings on its hinges.

If the key turns in the lock, it's enough.

She's in.

Lady ducks down and zips open one of her velcro pouches. The electronic listening device inside was expensive but it's always been one of her best purchases. She tucks two black earbuds into her ears and presses the little circular microphone to the wall.

"— pizza?" A woman's voice. "And he did not eat the olives?"

"He refused," says another, softly, in a tone that suggests they are answering the question, "Sparda's son claims that olives have no place on pizza."

Lady expects a lot of silence and waiting, certainly not luck like this. She muffles her disbelief in her sleeve.

"Olives, really? I have never heard of an Italian who refuses olives."

"Italian, he is not. He is born here in this city. Sparda named them Isundretson, as sons of his sundered power."

"Now why would he do that?"

"So they would not suffer. Levi births Lot. Lot births Lucas. Then Lucas would birth Lucifer. They will be kept from becoming the next, the devil. For no other reason could he wed a human. He was a fool and a foolishly stubborn one." An unidentifiable muffle. "He would not skip a name."

The conversation fades. Lady purses her lips, then sits back to look for auras. An ability accessible to her through her bloodline, and to Kyrie, who was once absorbed by a devil, it comes at the cost of temporary blindness. She positions herself in the stairwell.

Then she calls forward a sense of being.

Lady remembers the forest where Mary lived. There was a stream within it. Mary would walk alongside the rocky bank, kicking up leaves, laughing as animals shrieked or flapped or flew away in protest. She would dip her fingers in the water and play with the ripples it made on the surface.

She counts the ripples. One, two, three.

One is a human: unremarkable pebbles. Another is a demon's: a knotted tree. The last comes from something broad and intangible; the entering of a current; the disturbance of fish suffocating a slow death while the water thickens from toxicity.

The forest canopy thickens until there is no sunlight. Adrenaline crashes through her spirit and the trance falls to pieces.

She swallows what must be her heart and breathes as her chest struggles against the soul she's trying to push back in.

"Do you think I'm wrong to do this?" The woman's voice comes through the earbuds. "I believe in making peace. Even if it turns out to be wrong, I won't know, until I've finished it. That is the least I owe my family, who researched demons and died to humans."

Lady has never sensed anything so voracious.

"I met the other one, Vergil, at After Nine," the woman continues. "He is... like us, neither fish nor fowl. Lilith?"

"Yes, Mars?"

"Will you take care of him for us?"

"... Certainly, Mars. I will prepare the Nosos."

Their voices disappear. Lady stays in the stairwell for at least another hour, wondering if she's used up all her luck for the month, her head filled with notes and thunder. Then she sneaks out to return to where she'd come.

* * *

> _October 20     4:14 PM_
> 
> _..._

The Vie de Marli is an ancient island; its residents: escapees and those with different gods. The books which Vergil has – those books which Dante wished to borrow – speak of its origins and the legendary demon Sparda, who once vanquished the island of ancient evil.

Vergil has gone through the books twice now without reading them. He's looking for clues for why Dante might have requested these books and then left without a return. Did he remember that Vergil liked to read, and concluded that Vergil would visit the library, and it was actually a delivery for him? Vergil doesn't think Dante is such a fool to make an assumption so foolish. The bespectacled woman who helped Vergil retrieve the books in question held no idea why they were requested at all.

He has just decided to study one of these texts proper when he notices someone.

"... Nero."

Outside the door, Nero jumps. Vergil clears his throat. He'd sensed Nero's presence, so surely ... it was right to greet the boy? As a father?

It takes a few moments before Nero pushes the door open and walks inside.

It's awkward. Even Vergil knows that much. Nero glances briefly at all the books, then to Vergil — and then to the vinyl on the table. 

"Didn't take you as someone who liked rock," Nero remarks with a gesture towards it. "That's Dante's, isn't it?"

"That is... I had purchased it for him," Vergil explains.

"Oh. Sure. Okay."

And then another silence follows.

"So, uhh," Nero says, "do you, like. Regret any of it?"

Vergil lifts his head. "Regret, Nero?"

"The Qliphoth."

There is something difficult about returning Nero's eye contact, and so Vergil decides he is done with his reading, standing up onto his toes while retrieving the Yamato. Nero doesn't react well to this. He drops a bag of stuff he's holding and instantly has his strange, bladed, engine sword pointing towards Vergil.

It's the first time Vergil has gotten a clear look at it.

"So you are the reason, Yamato does not respond cleanly," is Vergil's murmur.

"Hah?"

Vergil returns the Yamato to his side, non-threateningly. "I have... heard —" overheard, supposed, been informed by the intelligence of instincts which he too possesses, albeit differently to Dante's, "— that you are a knight, versed in the religions of Sparda."

"Yeah, sure." Nero pauses. "Wait, religions?"

Vergil nods.

"Yes. Several religions exist, which all worship or give thanks to fa— your grandfather. He, erm, it appears he got around."

Nero sheathes his Red Queen and huffs.

Vergil tells Nero about the books Dante requested before leaving. While Nero seems interested in the information, he doesn't seem particularly enthused at the idea of reading. Vergil does note that his son very deliberately removes his weapons and checks they will not slide from wherever he has placed them. Then, assured in its safety, he takes a book and sits down.

"Great, old man, I'll give ya a hand. Er, again," Nero mutters, reminding Vergil of an ill-considered meeting in a garage.

Vergil finds the situation very curious. "You'll go without weapons?"

To his surprise, Nero's mouth twists outwards as he glares at the cover in silence. Vergil's breath catches. He... he recognises that expression as annoyed embarrassment. Because he...

Because Dante teased him about doing the same as a child.

Vergil swallows when he realises his mouth is dry. The question suddenly seems insignificant. Under his careful scrutiny, he notices Nero relaxing his guard by the barest fraction, once it becomes apparent no further questions would be mentioned.

The two of them flick through several books, both too tense to concentrate.

Without warning, Nero tosses his book down and laughs.

"What the fuck is this!" he yells.

Vergil is there at once.

"Where?" asks Vergil. He doesn't need his instincts to tell him it will be significant. In the short time he's been with his son, he already knows Nero better than that. "Show me. Nero."

Nero points to a family tree. "Dan du Spaude is the father of Daniel du Spaude, who's the father of Darius du Spaude." Vergil looks, and it is true. "The de Marli think they're funny? What the fuck."

"What?"

The look that Nero gives has all the signatures of Sparda's demon intelligence manifesting in his son. "They're biblical names. In alphabetical order."

... So they are.

"A strange tradition," concludes Vergil.

"No," Nero tells him. He grabs an earlier book he'd discarded. "Here. _Du Spaude_ is one of the other names used by Sparda, and here – there's the record to prove it. But the names must be fake, some kind of sick joke. And some of the shit in there!" Nero swings his arm and points. "The things they say? Sparda is nothing like that."

Vergil considers everything he knows and remembers about his father.

"He ... might be," says Vergil.

"Oh," says Nero. The book in his hands falls. As his son falls back onto his chair, very dazed, Vergil cringes inwardly as the spine of the text _thunks_ against the floor. Nero puts his face in his hands.

One hand goes up through the length of his hair. "Fuck."

Nero's disappointment is so strong, the weeks of his influence on Vergil so great, Vergil's long discarded sympathy decides to manifest in the urge to take the Yamato and go slice some things.

Well, he can't slice the books, and it would be foolish to destroy his current living space, and it will definitely be destroyed should he slice his son.

... Vergil decides to slice up his errant, missing, troublesome twin brother.

"For what reason did you come here?" asks Vergil.

"Lady told me to."

"Lady?"

Nero shrugs.

Vergil plots his brother's murder.

The room falls into the quiet of steady breathing.

"If it's Sparda," says Nero, slowly, "and maybe he thought he needed some kind of – some kind of reason to be on human records, for one thing, why would he do that?"

Vergil knows the answer in less than a second. "To obscure his lifespan and avoid being noticed for immortality."

"Hmm."

Nero fidgets his right arm, tensing it and relaxing it, repeating this action again and again like a spring; a sign Vergil recognises from V as his son being thoughtful.

Before Vergil can begin to put the books back together, the front door opens and closes. Trish doesn't hesitate as she walks over to them, the sound of her heels clacking on every step.

As the men turn to her, she holds up something dotted in small, black stars.

"I found something."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vergil: yeah, grandpa was an embarrassment. did you know he left me and dante. now _those_ were the days...   
>  nero: 😱

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/flux_fiction) \- [ask.fm](https://ask.fm/tridentsilver)


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